When a yacht containing both Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny)
& his secret ultimate weapon goes amiss, it doesn't take Batman
(Adam West) & Robin (Burt Ward) long to find out who is bhind all
this: All of Batman's arch-enemies currently at large, Catwoman (Lee
Merriwether), the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin),
& the Penguin (Burgess Meredith). This foursome wants to achieve
nothing less than world domination with Schmidlapps weapon, & only
Batman & Robin can prevent that. So, to get the 2 of them out of the way, they device a plan of Catwoman (in her disguise as beautiful
Russian journalist Miss Kitka) seducing millionaire Bruce Wayne (who of
course, bzut unbeknowest to them, is no other than Batman himself
without disguise), then abducting the man & waiting for Batman &
Robin to rush to his rescue only to step into their trap. For obvious
reasons, the plan fails to work out & Bruce Wayne manages to free
himself, forcing the villains to come up with some backup-plans: First
they try to blow Batman up with a bomb (which Batman tries to dispose of
at the docks in one of the movies greatest scenes involving nuns, drunk
sailors, lovers in a boat, a small orchestra promenading the docks,
young docks & Batman's famous comment "Somedays you just can't
get rid of a bomb !"). Next the crooks try Schmkidlapp's weapon for
the first time, the Dehydrator, a machine aboe to turn human
beings into dust - & they can even be turned back when water is
added ! So, the Penguin manages to cheat his way into the Batcave with
some dehydrated thugs, but when he wants to rehydrate them again, he
accidently uses heavy water Batman keeps at the cave to cool his atomic
generator & the thugs dissolvwe at the slightest touch. Finally, the
4 villains put their major plan into action, abducting the dehydrated
members of the United World Council & holding them for ransom in
their submarine, but the Batman & Robin can even foil that plan,
capturing all the villains & unmasking Catwoman as Kitka (breaking
Batman's heart of course), but unfortunately, the dust of the dehydrated
members of the United World Council accidently got mixed together &
when they are rehydrated, they appear to be speaking everything but in
tehir mother languages. Maybe it's for the better ...

When
William Dozier introduced the highly comical & intentionally camp Batman-TV-series,
it was a slap in the face of any serious Batman fan. Pretty much
everybody else loved the series though, & why not, how can you not
find someone funny who fights crime dressed as a bat (including stupid
ears) & wearing a cape. This movie, shot approximately after the
first season of the series & given a slightly higher budget than
Batman's small screen adventures, is pretty much in tone with the
TV-show, using the same actors (except for Catwoman, who was played by
Julie Newmar & later Eartha Kitt in the series) & the same over
the top humour. What is particularly amusing are the 4 lead-villains who
seem to have nothing else to do but constantly outham one another -
which works great in the context of the movie -, Adam West's
increasingly stupid dialogues which he delivers in his own unique way
& the great sets in bright primary colours as if right out of a
comicbook.